I hope you’re right, bagoh20.

The Zogby poll reminds me of the country’s demoralization during the Carter years. A few Carter apologists claimed that the Presidency had grown too complicated for a single person to handle. It was proposed that there be one President for foreign affairs and another for domestic affairs.

Like the 1980 Reagan, Obama calls for a fundamental break with business-as-usual. However, the 1980 Reagan was the successful two-term governor of a major state, and he did not present himself as a messiah.

As you noted most issues contain contradictions and even if a leader understands them it’s the job of leadership to choose a path through them and convince others to join you. The problem with Obama is he is showing me no path, rather just telling me how nice it would be on the other side if we just pick him. I need much more than that, but his supporters don’t seem to. The contradictions will remain… then what. This strange Obama frenzy is making me a little fearful of my people, and very disappointed in my media.

I don’t believe the system is broken. The party’s need some work, but isn’t the closeness of all the recent elections a healthy sign in our country. I just don’t know.

If Obama wins, we could be getting Bush-like grandiosity, moralistic certainty, disdain for details, and the airy sense that it is beneath one to think through a problem’s contradictions. (To be fair, I have some of the same concerns about McCain, with due respect to his claim to have the Presidency in perspective.)

But Obama also has rabble-rousing talents and (at least a serviceable facsimile of) charisma.

Small wonder that, when read the statement “I believe the United States’ system is broken and cannot be fixed by traditional two-party politics and elections,” 44% of adult Americans agreed. I’d assumed that my musing along such lines made me a part of a small minority.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,567919,00.html

…He takes the greatest ornament from friendship, who takes modesty from it…
…Modesty is that feeling by which honorable shame acquires a valuable and lasting authority…
Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)